Updated Den

So this past weekend I went back to my sister's house. She has been doing a little updating in her den and her kitchen . Take a look at what we have done so far, but first look at this view! If I had this to look at, I wouldn't even care what the inside of the house looks like.

I'm going to warn you, this is a long post, with lots of pictures! I can't help myself, it's my sanctuary, and anytime I can escape and go here, I go! Ok, back to the inside, patience!

I know, doesn't look much like a sanctuary, looks like work huh??? This is what it starts out looking like when we begin, hard to NOT improve... huh? This is her den and she gathered anything that she had that we could use. Now some of this is old stuff, remember everything can look new with some spray paint! Some of it rejects from my niece's house that we decorated here  and here. (Actually, if you want to see all of her house, look thru January 2011 in my archives and you can see all of it.) Anyway, some of this is new. We shop for months before a makeover collecting possibilities, usually more than we need and then return what we don't want. This is "the key" to redecorating if you ask me!

Here is a great example of new life given by spray paint. I purchased this at a garage sale for 7.00. And after we spruced it up, here she is!

Much better, huh? We added a little brown glaze over the paint. I love how it turned out. This lamp is HEAVY, where can you buy a lamp like that for under 10.00? Oh and the lamp shade, Goodwill!

Here it is before we added the glaze, we painted a little pitcher that we found from Goodwill too.

She has this massive stone fireplace that is just to die for and it has 2 big openings on either side. This is the old stuff coming down, some we reused, some not.

The screen made a return, of course I did not take a pic of the before, but it was brown. As we were redoing all of this, we questioned our original ideas... what were we thinking, everything is so dark and brown! The blue is gorgeous, here is a little closer look.

A little paint, and sand paper and you have an old aged screen, looks like it's been around for 100 years.

Here is the other side, an old rusty birdcage brought to life with a little Mediterranean blue spray paint. There is a little birdie peeking up out of that greenery, he's too small, but I bought another one after this picture was taken.

 Here's the mantel. We made an old barn door out of pallet wood to put this clock on because the size of the clock wasn't large enough. It's so much more grand now!

Here is that whole wall pulled together, just love this room and I might add to the left of this is a wall of windows and french doors that overlooks that beautiful view!

A closer shot of the clock. See those branches... we went outside to find them and noticed something funny as we were looking around.

This tree has a crack in it! It was really windy that day and the tree was blowing open, freaky, scary, right! So this halted ALL decorating projects for a couple of hours. We waited and watched, thinking it was gonna fall anytime, and people her house is right there!

Yep this is what we were doing, watching the tree! It's a dogs life, right???

A cute picture of my waiting partner, she is telling me she's 3!

And then out of no where comes my brother in law to handle the situation! Boys and their toys, they live for these moments, right???

You all are gonna have to pardon me, I'm a city girl, I don't see this kind of stuff all the time. It was fascinating to me! Sad to see this big old tree gone. You'll notice the leaves are green so it appeared to be fine, but the inside was totally hollow.

No telling what all has made a home in there. Oh speaking of home, you want to see the inside I am sure. Thanks for appeasing me!

My sister has a few of these old sewing machines, we took some old boards, painted them up and added them to the top as a little side table.

We put spray adhesive on a doily and glued it to a clear vase and added a candle. The tray is from Goodwill but we added a little Rub n Buff in the patina color to give it a little detail. This looks so pretty when it's lit, the doily just glows.

This is some iron work she has had for years, it sits above the french doors. It's several different pieces she put together.

You may have noticed the rug. I spotted this over a year ago, she fell in love with it. It has been the inspiration for us as we have built the room. I love it too, and I am going to get it soon!
So, that is all for now, that's more than enough, right! We kinda did this redo backwards. She is buying new furniture and making new curtains. But we haven't been able to find the furniture yet and I just found the curtain fabric, so once it's all done. I'll show you a pic of the entire room! It really is so pretty! Thanks for hanging with me thru this mega long post!

 Seriously, these guys have got it down right, chillin and takin in the view!

Ahhh, a little piece of paradise!